Trials
by ParadigmShifter
Summary: This is the fic Teri wanted me to write. Well, the first chapter anyway. Giles is visited by the Council after the death of his father...


Dedication: To Teri, because she asked nicely. I know I was a bastard to Giles in SJ4, and this is my penance… and if you don't like this, I could try again, but this wanted to happen…

Teri, this would have come out slightly sooner, but Windoze XP and my Audigy 2 drivers conspired to crash my computer just as it was autosaving. Result: hung PC and lost 2000 words of story, which I thought was good, but cannot for the life of me get back. Don't know why, but my mind doesn't want to remember it. I hope this is as good as that which was lost… I know it's shorter, certainly.

Disclaimer: Joss, WB, UPN et al. own Buffy. I do not.

Title: Trials      

Author: Paradigm Shifter

Rating: R

Pairing/Character: Giles

Notes: Oh, yeah. This is RIPPER, people, so heavy violence/swearing. There seems to be some slight references to Giles and Ethan having some sort of 'more than friends' relationship. I'm not comfortable writing any sort of romance stuff, let alone slash, so it might happen, but it probably wont. Depends on how fucked up I'm feeling.

Feedback: Appreciated.

Continuity: What the hell? This is Giles before Sunnydale. Hell, this is Giles before being castrated by the Watchers council.

*

The voice commanded: "Rupert Edward Giles, step forward!"

The name echoed round the reading room, disturbing the quiet of the otherwise silent chamber. Rupert Giles looked up to see who had called his name, and was unsurprised to see the chief librarian of Oxford University staring at him with something close to contempt. Giles liked books, but not the things the Librarians thought he should be reading. That made him unpopular.

The two men standing behind him reinforced Rupert's sense of danger, as the tweed and stoic, expressionless masks they wore hid any humanity they might have shown. They were slightly obscured by the stacks of books, but the stances both maintained were unmistakeable. 

Watchers.

Rupert Giles stood up from the desk he was studying at and slammed the heavy book shut violently, causing the crash to re-echo around the cavernous reading room, causing the studying student body to cringe again at the disturbance. A further look of disapproval was the only sign the Librarian chose to give him. Giles had not been popular with the faculty for some months now. It probably had something to do with the number of things he disrupted, from lessons to Physical Training sessions. Invariably, at least once a day, Giles and his mischievous demeanour managed to cause some sort of trouble.

This trouble manifested itself differently each day. Sometimes it would be green dye in the custard for dinner, or a flour bomb attached to the ceiling in the Dean's Office as a present for when he sat down, or perhaps a live black widow spider in the matron's Sick Room after she gave a lecture on spiders one day. Giles had just wondered if she had seen one close up before, since she was seemingly so interested in them. 

They had received a new Matron within a week, the shock of seeing one of the deadliest spiders on Gods green earth inches from her obviously being too much. The poor woman was now recovering, with aid from several of the best psychiatrists, and an expensive rest home.

Nevertheless, despite his behaviour and attitude, Giles was not expelled from Oxford. His father's money kept that from happening, even though Giles tried to sap it as much as possible. Some of his more expensive tricks racked up repair and reimbursement bills of over three thousand pounds. {A/N: remember, this is set pre-decimalisation, so three grand was a LOT of money. Things that cost £800 then will be worth anything from £10,000 to £250,000 now, depending on what it was… and repairs to listed buildings are NOT cheap…}

As Giles rounded the corner, worn leather jacket whispering as he moved, to see the men fully, he paused in contemplation. The full import of what those men standing there hit him.

It meant his father was dead.

It meant the Watchers had come for him.

The first thought struck him again. Hard.

His father was dead.

The person who had kept him here was dead. And his time here was soon to be over.

Giles stood for a moment and tried to understand what those words meant.

*

{Flashback}

"You are going to study at Oxford. There will be no say in the matter." His father's angry voice cut through the haze.

"I'm not going to Oxford! I don't want to go to some smelly old college, to be lectured about what is 'right and proper' by some ancient fossil!" Giles' indignation burned hot and fiercely.

"You will go to Oxford, and more specifically, to Magdalene, which was my college. There is no argument. The greatest politicians and public figures send their son's to Oxford. You will be no different. You are my son. I am a public servant. It is not only merely proper. It is expected." Despite the obvious rage simmering in his voice, Giles father never raised his voice above a normal tone.

"I am not going to be turned into another boring old fart like you and your business associates!" The young Giles argued with passion, but knew inevitably he would loose. If he did not, worse would come.

His father attempted to use persuasion once again, and played what he considered to be his trump card. "I went to Oxford. It is a fine place for an education."

Giles smirked, an alien expression to his father, and one he did not wish to see on his sons face. "You went to Oxford, did you?" Giles tone was scathing, "I rest my case…" As soon as the words left his mouth, Giles realised he had gone too far. But, true to his father, once something was said, he would not go back on it.

Giles father stared at his only son with an expression of pure shock. Then his face turned a bright red as blood rushed to the surface in anger. "GET OUT! GET OUT!!! Insolent PUP!" The sheer volume that came from the roar propelled Giles to the door before he realised what was happening. The door closed behind him, and he heard a crash as his father picked up some doubtless priceless artefact that had taken years to excavate and launched it at a wall or window.

Giles shook his head, and wondered how he could repair this damage. Then he realised an important fact:

He wouldn't be able to fix this. His fate was sealed.

Oxford was where he was bound. He had no say in the matter.

Snorting to himself, Giles frowned. "Like I had a choice in the first place…" Heading for the front door of the mansion, he grabbed his coat, and decided to get out of the immediate fallout. 

He knew a few places that would be safe. Giles hadn't spent the past few years in his father occult library without learning at least a few things.

*

The room faded back in, and Rupert Giles placed the semi-perpetual smirk on his face that had become his trademark since he arrived at Oxford and walked toward the Librarian and Watchers with his ubiquitous stalk.

There was another story behind the acquisition of this as well.

Two tales to tell.

The Stalk, and the smirk. But first, the Watchers goons.

*

Teri, this was pretty much just an attempt to set the scene. I wanted to see if what I have planned would work, and it seems that it might. Just depends how my other stories go, really.


End file.
